Nearly everyone has either seen or suffered from a catastrophic comment. Our research shows 83 percent have witnessed their colleagues say something that has had catastrophic results on their careers, reputations, and businesses. And 69 percent admit to personally making a catastrophic comment.
While putting your foot in your mouth is easy to do, we wondered if just any slip of the tongue can be fatal to your career, or if there are some comments that are far more damaging than others. So we asked 800 people and uncovered the top five most catastrophic comments:
- Suicide by feedback: You thought others could handle the truth—but they couldn’t.
“A co-worker made suggestions to a technical process in a meeting. Although his comments had merit, the manager took the suggestion as a personal insult. He verbally attacked this co-worker in front of everyone. My co-worker spent the next year trying to dig himself out of a hole. Everyone was afraid to associate with him for fear of retribution. He was eventually pillaged by another firm that recognized his skills.” - Gossip karma: You talked about someone or something in confidence with a colleague only to have your damning comments made public.
“A friend and schoolteacher thought she was 'talking' in private on Facebook and made an insensitive comment about all kids being ‘germ bags,’ meaning they bring their germs to school. As luck had it, her social media privacy filters had been turned off. Parents saw the comment and were outraged. They went to the school administration and she was asked to resign.” - Taboo topics: You said something about race, sex, politics, or religion that you thought was safe, but others distorted it, misunderstood it, took it wrong, or used it against you.
“A male co-worker made a loud, inappropriate sexual comment about an older female co-worker. He was the first to go in layoffs that happened a few months later.” - Word rage: You lost your temper and used profanity or obscenities to make your point.
“Someone was frustrated by the project partner’s lack of response and decided to verbally confront this person in a very aggressive and unprofessional way. I had to administer disciplinary action for the outburst, which contributed to a year-end performance evaluation that will cost him his incentive.” - “Reply all” blunder: You accidentally shared something harmful through email, text, or virtual meeting tools.
“Two employees were discussing the sexuality of our director in a disparaging way in email and one accidentally hit 'reply all.' All of the administrators saw the comments and they were terminated the same day.”
These stories illustrate that you can ruin your career with just a few words. In some cases, these comments reveal people’s incompetence or their unsavory moral compass, which makes them ill-suited for the corporate culture. And when it comes to discrimination, racism, or violence, there are comments that should never be tolerated.
And yet, many well-meaning and talented employees have a bad day. According to the data, we will all make an unintentional slip of the tongue at some point during our career. And when you introduce the X factor of technology, anything could go wrong despite our best intentions. So when we put our foot in our mouth, what can we do to ensure the results aren’t catastrophic, but rather recoverable? Below are three tips for recovering from catastrophic comments.
- The blunder: You said something that was just wrong, rude, or completely inappropriate.
What’s required: A clear, unrestrained apology. The bandage needs to be as large as the wound. If you aired your colorful disgust for your boss, a simple “I’m sorry” won’t cut it. Others need to hear an apology as intense as their disgust for you at the moment.
- The blunder: You said something that was right, but it came across wrong.
What’s required: While more complex, the apology must still match the fervor of the upset. You have three tasks:
- Acknowledge that your message sounded as offensive as others took it to be. And don’t move to step two until they’re satisfied.
- Say what you really think on the topic in the way you should have said it.
- Repeat step one.
- The blunder: You said something you believe, but that you shouldn’t have said in your position.
What’s required: Again, you must apologize. If you stated an opinion that is not the opinion of your company, then you must apologize as though you don’t believe what you said. You must right the real wrong—your irresponsible lapse of judgment in realizing you don’t get to represent your company in any way you see fit.
Want to learn more? Join me at ATD 2017 Conference & Exposition.